B&W hits new production milestone

Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services has announced that its DUF6 Project passed a fiscal year 2013 milestone March 24, when total production for the fiscal year topped 6,218 metric tons of DUF6 processed.

That number tops all of the production for fiscal year 2012, when 6,170 metric tons were processed in 12 months. The 6,218 metric tons for the current fiscal year were processed in slightly less than six months, despite plant outages of three weeks at both conversion facilities in Piketon and Paducah, Ky.

At the beginning of March, the project also announced it had shipped more than two million gallons of hydrofluoric acid for fiscal year 2012 and the first five months of fiscal year 2013. Sales have returned revenues of more than $1 million in economic benefit to the Department of Energy and American taxpayers.

"Reaching these milestones is a clear indication that we are on the path to safe, sustainable production," said George E. Dials, BWCS president and project manager. "We encountered many challenges as we started up these two new facilities and have dedicated much creative energy to solving production and systems issues. These milestones demonstrate that we are being successful."

The two plants - each employ about 200 people - were designed to operate for up to 25 years, while it is expected to take 18 to 30 years to convert the extensive inventory of DUF6 generated by six decades of uranium enrichment at the gaseous diffusion plants at the sites.

About a half million metric tons of DUF6 in 46,000 cylinders are awaiting conversion at Paducah, and a quarter-million metric tons of DUF6 in 26,000 cylinders are at Piketon.

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B&W hits new production milestone

Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services has announced that its DUF6 Project passed a fiscal year 2013 milestone March 24, when total production for the fiscal year topped 6,218 metric tons of DUF6